String-Math 2013

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The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook, USA is hosting a String-Math 2013 conference in June 17-21, 2013. (http://scgp.stonybrook.edu/events/event-pages/string-math-2013) This is a third annual meeting of String-Math series of conferences. The main goal of the conference is to bring together mathematicians and physicists who work on ideas related to string theory. String theory, as well as quantum field theory, has contributed a series of profound ideas which gave rise to entirely new mathematical fields and revitalized older ones. For mathematics, string theory has been a source of many significant inspirations, ranging from Seiberg-Witten theory in four-manifolds, to enumerative geometry and Gromov-Witten theory in algebraic geometry, to work on the Jones polynomial in knot theory, to advances in symplectic topology, to recent progress in the geometric Langlands program and the development of derived algebraic geometry and n-category theory. In the other direction, mathematics has provided physicists with powerful tools, ranging from powerful differential geometric techniques for solving or analyzing key partial differential equations, to toric geometry, to K-theory and derived categories in D-branes, to the analysis of Calabi-Yau manifolds and string compactifications, to the use of modular forms and other arithmetic techniques. The depth, power and novelty of the results obtained in both fields thanks to their interaction is truly mind boggling. String-Math is the annual conference that was founded to reflect the most significant progress at the interface of string theory and mathematics.String theory is the attempt to build a mathematical model which describes all four fundamental forces and all forms of matter. It assumes that the fundamental objects of the theory are one-dimensional objects - "strings" with elementary particles (i.e., electrons and quarks) being oscillations of fundamental strings. In particular, string theory aims to reconcile gravity, i.e., general relativity, with quantum mechanics which is the formalism in which the other three forces are described. String theory is very mathematical in nature and its development was based on advances in modern mathematics and inspired many recent developments in mathematics. The main goal of the String-Math conference is to bring together mathematicians and physicists who work on ideas related to string theory. By now there is a large and rapidly growing number of both mathematicians and physicists working at the string-theoretic interface between the two academic fields. The influence flows in both directions, with mathematical techniques and ideas contributing crucially to major advances in string theory. Following the success of first two meetings of String-Math series the conference String-Math 2013 is expected to have a major impact on the field and to serve as a record of the state of the art in string-related mathematics.